Prison service 'institutionally corrupt'

More than 1,000 prison officers are believed to be involved in corruption, according to a leaked report into the Prison Service.

The damaging report, which is the result of an investigation more than a year long, concludes that while most staff operate in an honest way, a significant number of officers are involved in corrupt practices.

The report, which was leaked to the BBC, claims corruption ranges from bringing mobile phones and drugs into the jail to accepting cash payments from inmates for transfers to less secure prisons.

Mark Leech, editor of The Prisons Handbook, the annual guide to the penal system in England and Wales, said the report revealed that the service was "institutionally corrupt".

The report is the result of an inquiry by the Metropolitan Police.

It states that corruption often starts with "inappropriate relationships" between prisoners and staff and that there are currently nearly 600 such relationships.

As part of the inquiry, police visited senior Prison Service officials including area managers and governors.

The inquiry also looked at the Prison Service intelligence database, known as "Watson".

'No action taken'

One of the most damaging claims contained in the report was that when intelligence is received about corrupt officers, often no action is taken to tackle it.

One Prison Service area manager is quoted as saying that 70 Security Intelligence Reports filed by officers identifying colleagues as corrupt had never been referred to headquarters and no action was taken against them as a result.

Mr Leech said: "This report reveals that what was claimed to be a few isolated cases of corruption is in fact the tip of a huge iceberg of dishonest practices that has infected the Prison Service nationwide.

"In short, it stands accused of being institutionally corrupt right across the country.

"The report shows that what the Prison Service currently has in place to tackle corruption is woefully short of what is actually needed in order to root out those officers who pose a threat to their colleagues, a danger to the public, and who bring shame on the service as a whole."